The Bundesbank today announced its gold repatriation tonnages for 2015: 210 tons, with 99.5 having been returned from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and 110 from the Banque de France in Paris. This is 6 percent of all German gold reserves and 10 percent of the German gold reserves held abroad:

This is a good improvement in repatriated volumes compared to 2013 and 2014 (not to mention 1968-2012, when no gold was returned).

... Dispatch continues below ...

ADVERTISEMENT

Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage

GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, ­taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit:

But the Bundesbank's pace is still too slow. Switzerland alone can import and export more than 10,000 physical tonnes per year.

The Bundesbank is still not ambitious enough with Germany's gold. The Bundesbank wants to repatriate only half of Germany´s gold (approximately 1,650 tons) by 2020, not 100 percent (3,380 tones) as our campaign demands.

The Bundesbank is still not transparent enough. It has provided no gold bar serial number lists, no external audit of Germany´s gold reserves (not even for the gold in vaults in Frankfurt), and no photography of physical delivery of the Germany gold from the Fed and Banque de France.

The Bundesbank is still double counting German gold bars on other balance sheets, indicating the possibility of fractional gold banking.

There is still no proof whether the Bundesbank has repatriated any gold from New York so far or whether central banks have just swapped book entries of their paper gold (directly or via the Bank for International Settlements).

At least one more central bank besides the Bundesbank must have repatriated some gold from the New York Fed in 2015, as the New York Fed reports a decline in its custodial gold holdings of another 25.5 tonnes.

In summary, there is good progress in the alleged pace of repatriation. This is positive in our view. But there is still no proof for anything reported by the Bundesbank about Germany's gold. There are still many counterparty, storage, and accounting risks with Germany's gold reserves. So Germany's gold might be so compromised that it could not perform its natural role as the ultimate currency reserve in case of a fiat currency crisis that created a need for Germany to change to a partially gold-backed new Deutsche mark.
* * *